Snow Dogs. I love Snow Dogs!

Snow Dogs. I love Snow Dogs!

"Now can we do Christmas stuff? Let's do Santa and his reindeer!"

"No. It's still November."

"Snow dogs. I love snow dogs!"

I didn't know he knew what a snow dog was. I really like this one and the look on the dog's face. This is one of my favorite animal snack sacks so far.

How about a mountain lion...

How about a mountain lion...

"Santa!"

"No it's too early. It's not even December yet. Remember?"

"It's close. It's only two days!"

"No."

"How about reindeer?"

"No. Same thing."

"Not Santa's reindeers. Just reindeer."

"No."

"How about a mountain lion?"

Uh, I'm not sure how he got there, but it resulted in a cool option.

"I just need to tell you, you're really good at drawing these stuff," he said, following up the compliment with a warm hug. Moments like that are what I live for.

I know! Crystals!

I know! Crystals!

We had a hard time deciding what to do today after a rocky start to our morning. He wasn't doing the 1-2-3's (our code name for his bedtime routine) last night and didn't want to talk about it today so I put my foot down...no chocolate cereal and no TV. He was pretty upset and so was I. We were in a stalemate.

But the snack sack would be created nonetheless. We kept thinking of Christmas options but we both agreed that it was too early for that. We decided to wait until December.

We kept talking about different things and he eventually said, "I know! Crystals!"

I showed him different options and he loved the one we chose more than the rest. Today, mostly because he didn't have any TV to watch, he sat and watched me draw after he finished his breakfast. As he watched, he kept telling me how I'm such a good drawer and how much he liked this drawing. He even said that he already knew he wanted to keep this one.

I asked him about the snowman from yesterday and he said he didn't keep it.

"Why?" I asked.

"I just didn't want to."

Fair enough.

How about a snowman...

How about a snowman...

There were surprisingly not many drawings to choose from, but I found this cute reference after searching for a while.

He had no reaction today when he saw it. Not sure if he didn't like it and I didn't ask him.

I like the snowman a lot actually. The background and botched up snowballs no so much.

Sundae

Sundae

"How about we do something yummy today?!"

"A waffle?"

"How about we do a sundae today!?"

Drawing to realistic picture instead of a drawing is always extra hard for me. This one came out pretty good but neither of us had much to say about it. 

Cake Factory

Cake Factory

"Ooooh, a cake factory!" he exclaimed.

"I don't know what a cake factor looks like buddy," I lamented.

"Okay," he conceded, "just do a cake factory."

It's hard to say "no" to him sometimes. I searched and searched but only found one image that I could draw some inspiration from. This time I had to try to draw something mostly on my own.

It looks a little weird to me as it doesn't really follow the rules of space or perspective, but when he saw it, he cried out, "Wow!"

If it's good enough for him, then it is good enough for me I suppose. :)

Monster Truck

Monster Truck

He picked a monster truck today because we had seen his friend's bag with a monster truck on it yesterday. It was cool to see that other parents had gotten into the act of drawing. What's more, the drawings weren't half bad. The monster truck in fact was especially good.

He said to me yesterday that he knew I would draw a better monster truck. I didn't. But as I drew it he came over and said, "Your monster truck is starting to look cool daddy!" I don't like it too much as I struggled to get the perspective and depth to look right. But he liked it nonetheless and I was happy that he didn't think of our drawings as a competition with other parents'.

Maybe a rocket

Maybe a rocket

"Lunch bag today is going to be...maybe a rocket!"

Sounded good to me. It wasn't easy for me to get this one to look like the picture and I had to compromise detail since I didn't have a lot of time this morning.

"Great daddy! I love it!"

That was nice to hear because I didn't love it myself.

When we got to school today, his friend ran up to him and yelled, "Victor look!"

The friend's dad had drawn a school bus in Sharpie on his lunch bag! Today was a field trip day and all the kids were asked to bring their lunch in a disposable bag.

The father came up to me. "My son keeps telling me about Victor's lunch bags. He asked me to draw something for him this morning. I had to draw something!"

I smiled and looked around the playground. Sure enough I spotted two other sacks with drawings on them. One had a cool monster truck drawn in silver marker and another white sack had colorful drawings all over it.

I hadn't realized that other parents might be getting requests from their kids. Pretty cool to know that our little project has inspired others to add some creativity to their mornings too!

Unless

Unless

"A wall. A brick wall and something in the middle is growing and saying 'thanks'."

"What?" I knew what he was talking about but wanted him to explain it, or remember it better.

"A brick wall is a circle and there's something in the middle and there's something that is saying thanks to the tree or something in the middle that's gonna grow."

"From The Lorax you mean?" I asked trying to let him off the hook. While he was talking I did the search and showed him the "Unless" circle of stones.

"Yeah!"

This one was fun to draw trying to get the perspective right. It came out okay and I liked finding a way to incorporate his letters into the drawing. He really enjoyed the movie and I guess the message stuck with him too, albeit, not word for word. He was close. :)

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

Bread Factory

Bread Factory

Sometimes we go through a lot of exploration before we settle in on the idea that makes it onto the snack. Today's went in many wild directions.

It started with him declaring, "So the snack sack today is..." He paused, looking around the room. Then suddenly pointed to a teepee on the kitchen table made of construction paper. It was an art project he had brought home the day before.

"That!" he exclaimed.

"A teepee?" I asked.

"Yeah!" he confirmed, but immediately changed his mind, "No, not a teepee. The biggest tower. Not the biggest building. The biggest tower." He continued, "I remember the biggest building. It's the Burj Khalifa." Then randomly he added, "Most sand comes from mummies."

Not knowing where he was going or what he was thinking about, I interjected, "Oh, I know, how about something from Egypt?"

"No," he said quickly.

"Like the pyramids," I suggested encouragingly.

"No."

"So the biggest tower, not the biggest building?" I said trying to get back on track.

"How about a factory?"

"What kind of factory?"

"Bread factory," he said with confidence.

I searched on Google. He looked and looked. Finally he said, "Okay, just do this one."

After I was done, he said with a smile, "Ah, that's cool! It's cool, daddy! I like it."

How about Mario driving...

How about Mario driving...

"Do you want to do all the detail?" he asked after he picked a pretty complex scene of Mario driving. "You don't have to if you don't want to." He went on, "You just have to draw the road and the water. You don't have to do the mountains."

I was up for the challenge today. We hadn't spent much time drawing scenes and I was interested in doing this one. I went ahead and drew the road, the water, the mountains, Mario, and Pac-Man. I spent a lot of time on this one and enjoyed the process.

When he saw it he asked, "You only drew these two?" Although he was correct that I had omitted the other drivers from the original, I was a bit stunned by the response. I brushed the negative feelings off quickly. He moved on too.

"Where's my name daddy?" (I love it when he calls me daddy.) I didn't answer, allowing his eyes the time to scan the drawing. He found it and noticed the "V" on Pac-Man's kart too. Victor Karts. What a fun game that would be!

How about the earth...

How about the earth...

"Last time you drew the whole solar system, but not just the earth," he reminded me.

Of course he didn't pick just the earth. He picked this image of hands holding the earth. Hands are notoriously difficult to draw well. I wasn't looking forward to the challenge, but I put the necessary time into this one.

The earth in this realistic view was also difficult for me to capture given the swirls of clouds that make up most of its surface. Yet, when I look at this sack my eyes are drawn to the fingers and hardly notice or care that it doesn't much look like the earth at all.

Spider-Man

Spider-Man

This morning didn't start out very well with the ideas.

"How about people standing together in front of a tree with leaves falling down."

"Um, what!!?!" I thought to myself. "That's too many things to do. It will take too long," I scolded.

I didn't have a ton of time this morning and was already feeling stressed. He didn't have any other ideas, just that one brilliant one. Since he couldn't come up with anything and because he had mentioned Spider-Man a few days ago, I decided to try our friendly neighborhood superhero.

I wasn't sure if I'd get the proportions right and felt nervous throughout. I ran out of time for the details on the buildings and didn't do a good job with the perspective there, but the idea comes across well enough. In the end, he liked it, as did I.

"Ooooo," he said softly when he saw the finished drawing. "Daddy, I'm not sure if I'm gonna bring this back," he warned me.

"Why?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure."

Well, he did bring it back. It's Spider-Man! How could he throw him away!?

How about the White House...

How about the White House...

After noticing his library book on the kitchen counter he sad, "I have an idea! How about the White House."

The book was The Congress and he confused the Capital Building with the White House. In concept he wanted the White House, but literally he wanted what he was looking at...the Capital Building. I took the time to show him both on my iPhone and explained the difference as best I could. We agreed that we wanted to stick with his original idea to draw the White House.

This one took longer than I thought and it was difficult to do it justice. It's hard for me to draw from a photograph rather than a drawing. But Victor liked it nonetheless.

"Oh yeah... Now that's what I like."

Just Thor

Just Thor

Today it was tough to pick something. We went from fall, to November stuff, to an autumn tree, to a snowy tree, to a Christmas tree, to superheroes (both Spider-Man and Thor together), to finally Thor. Just Thor.

We had taken so much time deciding what to draw that I just picked the reference drawing instead of handing over my iPhone. This one, like the vampire in a meadow, makes me cringe a little every time I look at it. The Thor I picked is a comic book looking Thor which looks pretty different from the way Thor is portrayed in more modern incarnations, like in The Avengers. In fact, he looked pretty unfamiliar to Victor even with the hammer in hand.

Victor looked me dead in the eye and asked, "What are you drawing? That doesn't look like anybody."

How about my letters on a sand castle...

How about my letters on a sand castle...

He picked an image today that really didn't have a well defined sand castle on it.

I tried to explain, "Well it won't look like a sand castle."

"It's okay. Just try," he said encouragingly.

"Okay," I thought to myself. But I wasn't convinced so I decided to pull a couple of reference drawings together to create one of my own. I simplified the beach and put a more traditional castle on it. He watched me draw after he brushed his teeth.

I suppose his letters didn't exactly end up on the sand caste, but he didn't seem to mind.

"That's a pretty awesome drawing," he told me with a lot of excitement in his voice.